Ashcroft and the Times: credibility on the line

I didn’t know that the New York Times now ran advertising on its op-ed page.

And free advertising, at that.

Op-Ed Contributor
Uncle Sam on the Line

. . . .

John Ashcroft was the United States attorney general from 2001 to 2005. He now heads a consulting firm that has telecommunications companies as clients.

While I applaud the New York Times for running a disclaimer, of sorts, in the “about the author” space at the foot of the article, my question is why bother to run this “opinion” piece at all?

I mean, honestly, is it still called an opinion if you are getting paid large sums to express it? To me, that sounds like a job.

And the Times is frankly much too happy to augment Ashcroft’s pay.

Worse still, the former attorney general’s column is so filled with sophistry and outright lies as to render its publication the height of journalistic irresponsibility.

First, Ashcroft follows his pal Jay Rockefeller in perpetuating a dangerous myth while running cover for his corporate benefactors. Last week, the Senator from West Virginia shilled for a telecommunications industry that has given him tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions while lying about the origins of the warrantless surveillance program(s) ordered by the Bush Administration. Monday, Ashcroft reiterated the same blatant falsehood with his first sentence:

FOR almost two years, the country has debated whether the Bush administration acted properly and lawfully in undertaking emergency surveillance operations of suspected foreign terrorists on presidential authorization in the wake of 9/11.

By my dictionary, “wake” means “after,” and we now know, as a reportedly outraged Ashcroft knew many years ago, the illegal spying started before the attacks of September 11, 2001. (I provided over a dozen citations for this point in my discussion of Jell-O Jay’s WaPo op-ed.) So, here, Ashcroft, like Rockefeller, is lying.

Next up in Mr. Ashcroft’s bullshit-filled billet-doux to the telcos, this little gem:

Whatever one feels about the underlying intelligence activities or the legal basis on which they were initially established, it would be unfair and contrary to the interests of the United States to allow litigation that tries to hold private telecommunications companies liable for them.

Of course, this comes from a man that threw a shroud over the statue of Justice. Nothing could be more fair than to allow both the plaintiffs and the phone companies their day in court, where both side could air their evidence before an impartial arbiter. In fact, it is the former chief law enforcement officer that prejudges, here—inherent in his plea is the assumption that the telecoms are guilty.

And nothing could be less “contrary to the interests of the United States” than getting this nefarious behavior—certainly in the case of the administration of which Ashcroft was once a part, allegedly in the case of companies like AT&T and Verizon—out in open court, where its legality and efficacy could be debated with both sides under oath. It might be contrary to the interests of the White House, or to the interests of Mr. Ashcroft and his telco clients, but moving forward with the various court cases would benefit this country’s democracy immeasurably.

Ashcroft continues:

Longstanding principles of law hold that an American corporation is entitled to rely on assurances of legality from officials responsible for government activities. The public officials in question might be right or wrong about the advisability or legality of what they are doing, but it is their responsibility, not the company’s, to deal with the consequences if they are wrong.

To deny immunity under these circumstances would be extraordinarily unfair to any cooperating carriers. By what principle of justice should anyone face potentially ruinous liability for cooperating with intelligence activities that are authorized by the president and whose legality has been reviewed and approved by our most senior legal officials?

As a practical matter, in circumstances involving classified intelligence activities, a corporation will typically not know enough about the underlying circumstances and operations to make informed judgments about legality. Moreover, for an initiative like the terrorist surveillance program — which the Office of Legal Counsel made clear was based on the Congressional authorization for the use of military force and the president’s war powers under the Constitution — a telephone company simply has no expertise in the relevant legal issues.

Here, the mind boggles. First, American corporations maintain legions of high-priced lawyers specifically because they don’t believe that they can take government officials at their word. Laws and regulations are interpreted almost daily. And, as the case of Joseph Nacchio, former head of Qwest Communications, proves, corporate lawyers can and have disagreed with the “assurances” of government apparatchiks as to the legality of secret activities.

Qwest’s attorneys seem to have understood something that Ashcroft and so many of his former administration colleagues don’t—we are a government of laws, not of men.

As a practical matter, in these specific circumstances, the telecommunications corporations involved knew plenty about the underlying circumstances and operations to make a judgment—as Qwest, indeed, did. The NSA was quite specific about what they wanted, and in fact drew up rather explicit technical requests, since early on (again, before 9/11), the spy agency had decided to outsource much of its fiber-optic infrastructure. (This is not a secret. Qwest’s expectations of receiving contracts for this project are at the heart of Nacchio’s legal woes.)

In addition, thanks to just the sort of legal proceedings that Ashcroft wants to suppress, we also know the outline of what the Bush Administration asked of the telecoms, and we know that the telecoms understood what was requested—because most of them cooperated. Though it can be debated what was part of the Total Information Awareness program, what was part of project Groundbreaker, and what was part of Pioneer-Groundbreaker, we know that taken as a whole, the White House and the NSA were seeking both to split fiber-optic lines to harvest all the digital data that those lines carry, and also to collect all the call records of Americans that made or received an international call—and perhaps the records of those that had only made domestic calls as well. And the Bush Administration sought to do this without going through the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court—which is (or was, until Congress capitulated to White House demands in August) a violation of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Moreover—to borrow Mr. Ashcroft’s transition—the Office of Legal Council does not have the authority to make any such determination as to the legality of this program. John Ashcroft, of all people, should—and does—know this. After all, it was Ashcroft that rose from his hospital bed to rebuff then Bush counsel Alberto Gonzales on Gonzo’s attempt to do an end-run around the Attorney General, or acting Attorney General, as James Comey was for the time that Ashcroft was hospitalized, on one of the aspects of the warrantless surveillance programs now under scrutiny.

Further, it is a matter of public record that allowances for such spying without a court order were not granted by the Authorization for Use of Military Force. The administration came to then Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle for such FISA workarounds, and Daschle specifically excluded this authority from the AUMF. That Ashcroft would again posit such a specious argument is the height of factual dishonesty and personal disrepute.

And the hits keep coming.

Even more important than the inherent unfairness of requiring companies to second-guess executive-branch legal judgments are the acute dangers to which it would expose the country. One of our nation’s most important comparative advantages over our adversaries is the creativity and robustness of the private sector. To cut ourselves off from that advantage would amount to a form of unilateral disarmament.

Yet if we allow the litigation to continue, that is precisely what we will do. The message that will be sent to American companies is that they can be exposed to crippling lawsuits for helping the government with national security activities that they are explicitly assured are legal. The only rational response would be for companies to adopt an attitude of extreme wariness, even in the most urgent or clear-cut situations. To put the matter plainly, this puts American lives at risk.

This might be news to the former head of law enforcement, but the judicial branch, not the executive, makes legal judgments. And, going further, the last thing any American, from the founding fathers forward, would want would be to leave our security to the “robustness of the private sector.” I know that’s something that intrigues the patrons of Blackwater USA and other initiatives to outsource responsibility, but we elect a government and fund all three branches through our taxes so that the public sector will take the lead on national security. And we have a Constitution to make sure that they do so within the rule of law.

As for those purportedly “crippling lawsuits,” I guess the only smart response would be for companies to be extremely wary, especially when, as the Qwest case has shown, an administration that plays fast and loose with the Federal Code will punish you for not cooperating. And, as is too often conveniently forgotten by proponents of breaking surveillance law, the FISA statute allows for three days, and sometimes up to a year, of spying before a FISA warrant must be sought. If a situation is so urgent that spying must start immediately, without going to a secret court, it can. If the urgency persists, than certainly a case could be made for putting an extra lawyer or two on the warrant application to comply with future deadlines.

But, as is often the case with Bush, Cheney, and their comrades, it is lines like that last one in the quote above—the waving of the bloody shirt—that are so thoroughly shameless. . . and shameful.

There is no instance—not one—where the Bush Administration can point to a life lost because of a legal requirement, nor can they show us any lives saved because they have ignored them. If anything, the last two years of revelations about the illegal spy programs prove quite the opposite.

As put forward in the discussion of the Rockefeller op-ed, since these programs began as early as February of 2001, if the warrantless surveillance was intended to catch terrorists, than 9/11 proves the program to be a failure. As is the case in so many instances where administration officials claim it necessary to violate US or international law, all of the information the government needed to foil the September 11 attacks was obtained through conventional, legal means, and was available to Bush, Cheney et al. had they been interested enough to pay attention.

Not content with that insult to our intellect and decency, Ashcroft continues:

Although the lawsuits are couched in the language of accountability and the public’s right to know, they would really have the effect of showing the world and our enemies sensitive secrets about how our national security agencies do their work.

This might come as news to Ashcroft (though it shouldn’t), but terrorists realized long ago that talking on telephones and sending e-mail was not a secure way to communicate. How did they find this out? Mostly because time after time, Bush and various high-ranking administration officials spoke in public about ongoing investigations in order to score political points. In fact, Ashcroft himself has been accused of just such a misstep.

Today, it is believed that alleged terrorists more often carry data by hand, or coordinate via an assortment of websites. These websites are published for all the world to see, but it takes good, old-fashioned intelligence work to find, watch, and translate these sites. The intel community has complained on previous occasions that such productive methods have been given short shrift while the administration dedicated personnel and financial resources to high-tech and often warrantless surveillance. (There was also a recent case in which an on-going investigation that relied on website intelligence was compromised by an eager to scare, blabbermouth Bush.)

Ashcroft has more:

For domestic purposes, proper accountability already exists — through the people’s elected representatives on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. It is through the legislature, not lawsuits, that we as a nation have tried to balance the need to let our intelligence agencies operate in secret, as they must if they are to be effective, and the need to ensure that they do so lawfully.

Again, the former head of the Justice Department fails to understand or at least acknowledge the role of the courts as explicitly outlined in the Constitution. It is through the checks and balances exercised by all three branches of government that we as a nation moderate the excesses of any one branch. The matter of determining whether any one program or pursuit is lawful or constitutional is expressly given to the Judiciary. Any C student should be able to fill-in Ashcroft on these finer points of high school civics.

And, speaking of civics, Ashcroft informs us:

The Senate Intelligence Committee has voted 13-2 to grant immunity to telecommunication carriers that have been sued for helping the country after 9/11. Unlike most everyone else, this committee had the necessary and relevant facts when it rendered judgment.

Well, what Ashcroft fails to disclose is that, first, it was the Senate Judiciary Committee that had requested that they be availed of these “necessary and relevant facts,” but the Bush Administration prevented them from seeing this information, instead favoring the much friendlier eyes of the Jay Rockefeller-lead SSCI. (The administration finally relented and allowed Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy and Ranking Member Arlen Specter to see documents last week, and it should be noted that they still oppose immunity.) Second, the House Intel Committee passed a revised FISA bill that specifically did not include retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies. Third—again, a civics lesson—it requires the entire Senate (and the entire House) to vote for a bill before it has a chance at becoming a law (someone needs to send John a DVD of Schoolhouse Rock). Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) has placed a hold on the bill, and says he won’t allow a draft that contains immunity to come to a vote, so the future (and general acceptance) of Ashcroft’s much-loved workaround is, at the very least, still an open question.

And, finally, Ashcroft sums it up for us:

Assuming that the country’s communications companies helped the National Security Agency track Qaeda operatives and other terrorists after being assured that their conduct was lawful, they acted as patriots, not privacy violators.

Alas, poor Ashcroft, a judge (remember those, John?) has already ruled on this assumption:

[F]ederal judge Vaughn Walker ruled against AT&T in Aug. 2006, specifically citing the fact that the company was not operating in “good faith” when it participated in the warrantless wiretapping program. Judge Walker wrote:

AT&T cannot seriously contend that a reasonable entity in its position could have believed that the alleged domestic dragnet was legal.

I believe there’s some fancy Latin term that’s appropriate here, but I’ll put it in plain English, so that legal half-wits like John Ashcroft can understand: By your definition, the conduct of the telecoms and the government that coerced them was unlawful. They were not patriots, they were violators of our privacy, of the FISA law, and of the Fourth Amendment. Q.E.D. (I couldn’t resist.)

Once again, as he did so many times when he was Attorney General, Ashcroft has exhibited a zealous pursuit of personal interests and a glaring ignorance of the law. He is, as someone once admonished, entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts. When we as readers of the New York Times turn to the opinion page, we are entitled to informed, thoughtful, and earnestly argued opinions; we should not be subject to columns of calumny for cash.

I was going to simply call it advertising, but advertising is actually required to back up its assertions. Because his opinion has been commissioned rather than researched, Ashcroft—and, so, the Times—cannot.

(h/t hhex65)

(cross-posted to Daily Kos and The Seminal)

Anybody see a conundrum?

I do, and I think Bush’s Cheney’s lawyers do, too.

Why else would the president’s office forbid former counsel Harriet Miers from even appearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, just hours after former White House political director Sara Taylor was “allowed” to testify (if you can call it that) in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee?

Maybe it had something to do with the way Taylor exercised her executive privilege:

Ms. Taylor said she “did not attend any meetings with the president where the matter was discussed” and could not recall seeing any presidential directives about the firings. Asked whether Mr. Bush was involved in the firings, she replied, “I do not have any knowledge that he was.”

OK, so here’s the thing: If the matter of the attorney firings was not discussed—at least not in Taylor’s presence—and Ms. Taylor has no knowledge of Bush’s involvement in the firings, and the firings are all these hearings are investigating, then what exactly is privileged here?

Granted, even with the protection dubious claim of executive privilege, and her lawyer by her side, Sara Taylor still uttered more than her share of I-don’t-recalls and I-can’t-remembers, but if the chief executive was not involved with the matter at hand, then that executive’s claim to privilege doesn’t seem to be applicable.

Conversely, however, if the witness and the White House persist in arguing that conversations between Taylor and the president (or vice president?) are not to be discussed in the context of this hearing, then those conversations must have at least touched on the attorney firings.

By both saying that her conversations were devoid of this specific content, and still asserting Bush’s claim to privilege, Taylor has either committed perjury or abrogated the basis of the presidential order.

Which one is it, Ms. Taylor?

Now, if I can ask this question, you would think some Senator might be able to, as well. To their credit, Feinstein and Leahy came close, but they didn’t quite get there. Maybe I’m not the only guy who sees this coming; maybe somebody in close proximity to Harriet Miers thought that even if Senators didn’t quite make it, Representatives on the House Judiciary Committee would.

Given the shaky legal ground on which they already stand, maybe that’s a chance Miers’ patrons didn’t want to take. Or, to put it the way Senator Arlen Specter did when he addressed Sara Taylor (about her claim to executive privilege) at Wednesday’s hearings, “You might have been on safer legal ground if you'd said absolutely nothing.”


Update: A commenter at TPM believes that by ordering Miers not to appear before the House Committee—by ordering her to defy a subpoena rather than having her appear and assert executive privilege—President Bush has committed a felony.

(h/t DanK)


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

What They Said, and What They Should Say

Well, surprise, surprise, President Bush has again defied Congress and again invoked a tenuous claim of executive privilege to do so:

President Bush directed former aides to defy congressional subpoenas, claiming executive privilege and prodding lawmakers closer to their first contempt citations against administration officials since Ronald Reagan was president.

It was the second time in as many weeks that Bush had cited executive privilege in resisting Congress' investigation into the firings of U.S. attorneys.

White House Counsel Fred Fielding insisted that Bush was acting in good faith in withholding documents and directing the two aides -- Fielding's predecessor, Harriet Miers, and Bush's former political director, Sara Taylor -- to defy subpoenas ordering them to explain their roles in the firings over the winter.

In the standoff between branches of government, Fielding renewed the White House offer to let Miers, Taylor and other administration officials meet with congressional investigators off the record and with no transcript. He declined to explain anew the legal underpinnings of the privilege claim as the chairmen of the House and Senate judiciary committees had directed.

Both House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy have issued responses. Conyers was stern but polite:

We are extremely disappointed with the White House letter. While we remain willing to negotiate with the White House, they adhere to their unacceptable all-or-nothing position, and now will not even seek to properly justify their privilege claims. Contrary to what the White House may believe, it is the Congress and the Courts that will decide whether an invocation of Executive Privilege is valid, not the White House unilaterally.

While Leahy exhibited a bit more piss and vinegar:

I have to wonder if the White House’s refusal to provide a detailed basis for this executive privilege claim has more to do with its inability to craft an effective one.

But I have to wonder if Democrats are not missing the best and easiest argument to make in this and the other privilege cases. It seems to me that what needs to be said is something like this:

President Bush has again demonstrated his belief that he, and anyone else he designates, is above the law, but worse, he has asserted that his administration owes nothing to the American people. In this case, the president’s continued insistence that his aids will only meet with Congressional investigators in secret and without a transcript confirms such disrespect. Why is it OK for administration officials to talk to a select few in private, but not OK for them to talk in the open, in front of the people that elect the president and pay the salaries of his entire staff?

We think the American people deserve to hear what these Bush aids have to say. We believe that Americans are capable of understanding the facts of this case, and, more importantly, understanding right from wrong. Judging from the position taken by President Bush, either he believes that the people are incapable of understanding, or he is deeply afraid that they will understand all too well.

(cross-posted from guy2k)

Time to Play Offense

If events of the last week or so have not convinced congressional Democrats that the ball is in their court, I really can’t fathom what will.

Perhaps, to some, at first blush, it doesn’t look so sanguine. The President nullified a jury decision in the Libby case. The Bush-packed Supreme Court and the Sixth Circuit assumed the rubberstamping duties previously exercised by the last Republican congressional majority. The White House continues to discount and dismiss congressional inquiries and, now, subpoenas. The Pentagon continues to force-feed American troops into an Iraqi meat grinder while administration officials saber rattle in the direction of Iran. And it has become ever more clear that a vice president who considers himself above the law and outside the Constitution has unparalleled sway over an ignorant, incurious, and un-analytical president.

But look past the Beltway, and you might see something different. Call me a cockeyed optimist, but I see it. . . or at least feel it.

Overwhelming numbers of Americans disapprove of the commutation of Libby’s sentence. Not just Democrats, but the much-coveted independent voters see the president’s move as wrong, if not downright cynical. Even Republicans are deeply split—some actually offended by the unequal administration of presidential clemency, others feeling betrayed because The Decider didn’t decide to pardon their “fallen comrade.”

In fact, several on the right have labeled the commutation as political and “Machiavellian,” while most on the left and many in the establishment have come to realize what I argued almost immediately after Bush’s move: The Scooter buyout wasn’t merely a profile in cowardice or an exercise in splitting the baby—it was a carefully crafted decision designed to most optimally guarantee Libby’s silence.

Decisions in the courts, be they SCOTUS or the Court of Appeals, stand as a shock to the conscience. From wage equity, to illegal surveillance, to habeas corpus and military commissions, an increasingly uneasy country has been further stirred and a sluggish Congress has been put on notice: Where the courts have been allowed to interpret bad laws badly, it is time for legislators to rewrite those laws for the better.

The House Judiciary Committee has issued subpoenas for information pertaining to the illegal domestic surveillance program; in both the House and Senate, many other subpoenas sit approved but un-issued. Sen. Leahy and Rep. Conyers, et al., need to send up those subpoenas, and when those legally binding demands for evidence or testimony are ignored or defied, then it is time for Congress to hold the President and his cohorts in contempt—at minimum.

On the war in Iraq, the Majority failed to hold its ground in the spring, and it saw its approval ratings plummet. Since then, the administration’s splurge has demonstrated its tactical ineffectiveness with buckets of American and Iraqi blood, while the strategy of providing time for the Iraqi government to stabilize has proved so tragically flawed that it will be a miracle to see Iraqi PM Malawi survive the summer.

And people—in the ivory towers and in the heartland—have noticed. Last week saw the staunchly pro-military paper The Olympian in Olympia, Washington advocate a troop withdrawal, and Sunday’s New York Times finally relented and admitted “it is time for the United States to leave Iraq.” Those papers are only playing catch-up to their readerships, whom for many, many months have been telling pollsters that Bush’s fiasco should never have been started, is not going in the right direction, and is overdue to end.

The Times has even checked itself on its recent parroting of some current White House rhetoric. Public Editor Clark Hoyt questioned recent reliance by Times’ reporters on the administration’s assertions that the lion’s share of violence in Iraq can be blamed on al Qaeda. His inquiries seem to have spurred news editors to exercise more care in explaining the difference between the al Qaeda that engineered the 9/11 attacks, and the vaguely affiliated, al Qaeda-inspired groups that might have a role in the ongoing Iraqi mayhem. This fix is still belated, but is indeed a much faster correction than was seen vis-à-vis the lies that led up to the initial invasion.

And while a recent ARG poll shows that roughly half of America believes President Bush should be impeached (a remarkable number, really, and more than enough of a sign that congressional hearings should at least begin), the same survey records overwhelming majorities in favor of Vice President Cheney’s removal. Bush’s overall approval rating, averaged across all major polls, has now dipped below 30% 28%; while Cheney can’t drag his numbers out of the teens. These men are not liked, trusted, nor respected, and Dick Cheney provokes disgust, as much in so-called independents as in Democrats, and increasingly in his own party.

So, again, I posit, the ball is in the Democrats’ court. In fact, it is a sporting goods mega-store worth of balls, each served up like a friendly toss in a game of slow-pitch softball.

And there are signs that congressional Democrats, if not yet ready to swing for the fences, at least know it's their ups.

Rep. Henry Waxman has been dogged all year, starting many balls rolling on many oversight investigations. House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers appeared on ABC’s This Week demanding President Bush waive executive privilege—as President Bill Clinton did when his pardons came under scrutiny—to allow a full and free investigation of the commutation of Libby’s sentence. Conyers also stated that if the White House refuses to comply with congressional subpoenas relating to the firing of US Attorneys, he could move to hold Bush and Cheney in contempt of Congress, and also acknowledged that Americans have now come to see impeachment as a favorable option.

On the Senate side, Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy is considering calling Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to testify, not about what happened before the grand jury, which would not be proper, but about his interviews with Bush and Cheney, which, at the insistence of the White House, occurred outside the protective cover of the grand jury room.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently acknowledged that his party “hasn’t done enough” to oppose the president’s Iraq policy, and is now sounding like he wants to make up for this error. Seeing a mini-wave of half-hearted “defections” by respected Republicans, Reid wants to give them the chance to put their votes where their rhetoric is. The Nevada Senator is proposing a series of votes on troop drawdowns and spending restrictions in the next couple of weeks.

Reid even has the feckless former Secretary of State on his side. The opinion-shy Colin Powell has now decided it is safe to announce that he argued with the president for a whole “two-an-a-half hours” in an attempt to head off the US invasion.

The balls are indeed drifting, the tide is most certainly shifting, but, like the ghost of Christmas yet to come, I show you shadows not of what will be, but only of what could be. The balls will not play themselves; the future is what Democrats will make of it. The opportunities are now there and manifold, but it is necessary to take advantage of them.

Now is the time. Time to fix the laws and require the executive branch to honor them. Time to demand accountability and transparency. Time to withdraw from Iraq. Time to enforce subpoenas and begin hearings on impeachment (for the vice president, at the very least). It is time for Democrats in Congress to realize that for their own fortunes, as well as for America’s as a whole, when it comes to upholding our laws and defending our Constitution, when it comes to defending our personal liberties and our national interests, when it comes to these times and this White House, the best defense is a good offense.


Update: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, noting a new congressional analysis on the costs of the Bush/Cheney war machine, has added her voice to the reawakening chorus on Iraq:

Think about what $10 billion a month would mean to protecting Americans from terrorism, improving security at our ports and airports, and increasing border security. Think about what $10 billion a month would mean for the 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance, for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and for the education of our children. Think about what $10 billion a month would mean to lowering the deficit so that future generations are not burdened with debt.

The American people are outraged at the Bush Administration’s misplaced priorities -- that is why Congress will hold the Administration accountable with votes this month to end the war and redeploy the troops. This will include a vote on legislation to begin redeployment of our troops within 120 days and to conclude by April 1, 2008, with the exception of those remaining in Iraq to fight terrorists and protect our diplomats.

The date-certain legislation gives our Republican colleagues another opportunity to join Democrats in heeding the wishes of the American people, who want to wind down this war and bring our troops home.

(cross-posted to Daily Kos)

[What, you don’t take my word for it? I have links to back up all of the above, and I will try to insert them later if my time allows. Done.]

The Base Stench of High Crime

Let’s face it—this one fails the smell test.

Forgive me if you’ve heard some of this before, but humor me a moment. To the best of my recollection, as they say, the timeline goes something like this:

Fall 2006—The Republican-lead Congress passes a provision secretly slipped into the Patriot Act renewal that gives the Attorney General the power to appoint interim US attorneys on an indefinite basis, thus avoiding the usual Senate confirmation process. President Bush signs that provision into law.

December 2006—The Department of Justice fires seven US attorneys without cause. The reason for their dismissals later surfaces: they were deemed by the White House and DoJ not to be “loyal Bushies.” More specifically, the fired attorneys had either pursued corruption investigations against Republicans, or had failed to pursue Democrats or charges of so-called voter fraud aggressively enough to satisfy the executive. (Several other US attorneys, though not officially fired, appear to have been forced to resign over the Summer and Fall of 2006.)

Winter-Spring 2007—Purge-gate, AKA the US Attorney scandal, blossoms to reveal a web of Justice and White House officials working in concert to fill the ranks of the US Attorneys with partisan hatchet-men and women and former associates of Karl Rove using the new authority granted by the shady provision in the Patriot Act.

Spring 2007—Responding to the rush of revelations about the scandal, both the Senate and House vote in overwhelming numbers to strip the interim appointment authority from the law and restore the previous checks and balances to the process.

June 4, 2007—Congress sends S.214, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, to President Bush for his signature. Bush takes no immediate action.

June 13, 2007—Senate Judiciary Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) is notified by DoJ that Acting US Attorney for the Central District of California, George Cardona, will be appointed to the post on an interim basis by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales using the authority granted under the 2006 USA Patriot Act. Cardona will be able to serve indefinitely without Senate scrutiny. (The Central District was run by Debra Wong Yang until she resigned last October. Yang had been leading an investigation into “lucrative ties” between a lobbying firm and Republican Representative Jerry Lewis, and is believed to have been targeted for ouster by White House Counsel Harriet Miers.)

Senator Leahy reacted this way:

That bill, the Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007, has been on the president’s desk since June 4th. Do you know it seems he just can’t bring himself to sign it? Instead, we were informed yesterday through the Justice Department that the attorney general has used the power that we voted to repeal again.

It’s almost like they live in an alternate world, as though they’re not realizing the reaction of Democrats and Republicans about this misuse of this power. That’s wrong.

June 14, 2007—Late Thursday night, The White House released this two-line statement:

On June 14, 2007, the President signed into law:

S. 214, the “Preserving United States Attorney Independence Act of 2007.”

Which brings us to today. . . .

Gosh, when you put it all out there like that, it kind of stinks, don’t it? Kind of looks like the President and the Attorney General conspired to subvert the will of Congress, right? People might get upset if they knew how this went down. . . .

If they knew.

Now, what I just did wasn’t hard; I was able to research and type it up in a relatively short time. Indeed, if you are even a semi-regular reader of political blogs, you probably knew most of this already. Yet, a quick look at today’s papers’ on-line editions—including a couple from Central California—reveals no such chronology—in fact, I can’t even find anything on Cardona’s interim appointment beyond the blog work I link to above.

Will tomorrow’s network newscasts deal with this? I doubt it. Will it even show up as a blip on the cable news channels? I’m not holding my breath.

Now, it’s not like no one has noticed. Leahy’s office has, Think Progress and Raw Story have, but that seems to be the full extent of it. Granted, Thursday was a bit full of news (Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon. . . a nasty Supreme Court decision no one has noticed much, either), but this—this clearly intentional foot-dragging to do an end-run around Congress, this collusion between the White House and Justice to pack the ranks of the US attorneys with one more partisan hack, this conscious counteraction to the desire of the American people, this aggressive deceit—this is not trivial, folks!

In fact, this is exactly the kind of stuff that runs afoul of this:

Article II, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Like I said, it fails the smell test, but, in doing so, it passes the Constitutional one. Maybe if members of the establishment media took the short time to explain this scandal, as I did above, then the logical next step wouldn’t be so difficult to comprehend. I mean, c’mon, what drives ratings and sells papers better than a good scandal—especially one that leads to impeachment proceeding for the nation’s top cop and the nation’s top crook?


(cross-posted to Daily Kos)